b. 1952, Valencia, Spain
Lives and works in New York
Elena del Rivero is a painter with a large body of works on paper. She has, however,
experimented with other mediums like photography and video. Her work develops
slowly building visual narratives that are completed with carefully chosen titles that
favor double entendres. She has always been interested in transforming decay and i
n reusing her discarded works, putting them back together as a metaphor for the
ritualistic power of mending life.
Employing simple materials and humble gestures to produce emotionally resonant
installations, her work is often built upon actions like cleaning and sewing that have
a domestic tenor. She brings these activities from the private space of the home into
the public arena of the gallery giving her works the familiarity of memory but with a
surreal and poetic charge.
Major grants include a Rockefeller Foundation Residency in Bellagio, Italy in 2005,
New York Foundation for The Arts Grant in 2002 and 2001,
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2002 and 1991, Creative Capital Grant in 2001,
The Prix de Rome at Academia de Bellas Artes in Rome, 1988, among others. In 1995,
Del Rivero represented Spain at the Johannesburg Biennal. Her work is in the collection of
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Yale University, New Haven; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock;
American Express, San Francisco,, New York; Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona; IVAM, Valencia;
Patio Herreriano, Valladolid; Fundación Caja de Burgos, Caja Burgos; Museo de Pamplona,
Navarra; CGAC, Santiago de Compostela,; and the Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; among others.
